A natural hip joint may undergo degenerative changes due to a variety of etiologies. When these degenerative changes become so far advanced and irreversible, it may ultimately become necessary to replace a natural hip joint with a prosthetic hip. When implantation of such a hip joint prosthesis becomes necessary, the head of the natural femur is first resected and a cavity is created (e.g., by reaming and broaching) within the intermedullary canal of the host femur for accepting the hip prosthesis, typically referred to as a femoral insert. The femoral insert may be inserted and supported within the host femur by cementing the femoral insert within the host femur. Alternatively, the femoral insert may be impacted into the host femur so that it is snugly fit and supported by the host femur.
Due to any number of reasons, however, a small portion of patients that undergo such orthopedic surgical procedures may require subsequent revision surgery to replace the hip prosthesis with a new prosthetic device generally referred to as a revision prosthesis. Because conventional hip replacement procedures typically remove significant amount of bone tissue from the area surrounding the proximal intermedullary canal, there are significant problems associated with securing the revision prosthesis to the remaining femoral structure.
Accordingly, there has been increasing reluctance on the part of orthopedic surgeons to remove the entire femur head as well as to remove any significant amounts of bone tissue in the proximal intramedullary canal during hip joint replacement surgery. This is especially true with respect to patients that have only slight to moderate bone tissue damage on the surface of the femur head (e.g., caused by vascular necrosis or osteonecrosis). In these cases, the limited amount of bone tissue damage on the surface of the femur head would appear to contraindicate the necessity of removing the entire femur head in order to accommodate a conventional femoral insert.
This need has led to the development of femoral resurfacing components that require only that a portion of the femur head be resected, rather than the entire femur head. Presently, all currently available femoral resurfacing components are comprised of a single, unitary piece and either have a relatively short or relatively long, straight post to follow down the femoral neck. However, a major disadvantage of these components is that they significantly limit the versatility of femoral neck options and degree of offset, they are susceptible to early loosening and femoral neck fractures, and they require substantial rehabilitation periods similar to traditional total joint replacement techniques.
Therefore, there exists a need for femoral resurfacing systems, and methods of using same, for minimizing the amount of bone tissue that needs to be removed from the proximal femur, such as the femur head and proximal intramedullary canal, during a hip replacement procedure and simultaneously allows a number of different configurations, angles, and offsets to be easily and inexpensively achieved.